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The Noble Art Of Subterfuge

Submitted by nevillenixon on Tue, 12/09/2017 - 17:30

West Ham United Captain Mark Noble's exclusion from the squad to play the crucial tie against Huddersfield raised more than a few eyebrows, ostensibly it was due to a minor injury, what? This is a man who played last season's big match against Tottenham with a significant hernia, leading some to question the exact details of the 'minor' injury!

In the brilliant but non football related movie 'Rush'about the F1 title race between Niki Lauda and James Hunt there is a scene near the end where Lauda retires from the last race of the season, the Japanese GP, because he thought it was too dangerous to continue in the rain. Lauda's team, Ferrari, offer to say that he had mechanical issues but the Austrian said "No, tell them the truth".

In the run up to the Huddersfield game Mark Noble was featured in several high profile journals explaining what such an important match meant to a 'home grown' lad and how the result effects him more than others, indeed he was very articulate in describing how important playing for his boy hood club is to him, at the same time he also inferred that perhaps certain players don't really understand what commitment is required by the Hammers faithful. Strange then after 'bigging up' the match so much that Noble was totally absent, not even making the bench.

At the Org we are of the opinion that the penny has finally dropped, and the 'Wiily C' transfer saga rather proves the point that Slaven Billic knows that his club captain's legs have gone, Noble is not stupid and will have understood that his time is up sooner or later, perhaps the club decided to invent the injury to save Noble's pride, after all he has been such a loyal servant he at least deserves to be shown sufficient respect.

Eventually time waits for no man, expect to see a few more withdrawals through injury for hammers stalwart Noble, but hopefully a role can be found for him that has dignity and purpose, he deserves plenty! - Ed

He does seem to be struggling. So at best he has to play his way back in the team like anyone else. More a squad player now unless he proves otherwise. Never quick but used to put in the miles, less so now.

Jeez boys you are an impatient lot. Firstly we lost three games in a row and were relegated with Bilic sacked. Now Noble's getting laps of honour as he retires at the age of 30. There's a hell of as lot of premature ejaculation on here, i bet your missuses are well happy? ;)

Stats Shmats mate he's also our most successful manager in terms of percentage wins ( http://www.managerstats.co.uk/clubs/west-ham-united/ ). So what? Do I think he's the best manager we've had, no of course not, but he's there now, bought/loaned 4 new players that he wanted, so I'm willing to see what happens. Plus there is no obvious choice to come in. We could've had Woy!! Benitez for me is a bit of a fraud. Actually Howe too for me now. They've a bigger net spend than we have, and are paying players £120k a week. So all this little old Bournemouth thing is nonsense. He's lost 4 in a row and nobody talking about golden boy being sacked. The money he gets paid is obscene but so is every wage in Premier League football. As you've said before money is killing the game. The knock on effect for us fans is there's no patience there's no time. Because of the ridiculous amounts, it has to be here and now. Why should we go up to west brom and win? Who the hell are we to think that's a given? Go up there and put in a shift, graft for the badge the fans. If a result comes with that even better.

i agree he needs a bit of time but that said if we had lost to huddersfield i believe he should have gone. its not this 'its only 4 games' thing…its a carry on from the work before and why shouldn't it be? when you have all summer/pre season to sort yourself and team out, its not acceptable to perform like we did for 3 games and a 4th would have been the final straw for me anyway. you obviously disagree, thats fine. but we stuck with grant when we should have fired him, so theres not any one clear cut way to handle it. for example if we lose to WBA and put in another abysmal performance, should Bilic still stay on? when should he go? if we win or at least if we lose but play really well, chances are he will stay…thats life no? whilst i agree with you sentimentally, i disagree based on the fact we are not dealing in the same football as before. the modern game makes millionaires of millionaire players as managers (i.e. Bilic), and his staff…so you believe they warrant time etc, but if this is your 3rd season, how much more time would you say he should get? when you are on that sort of payroll, there are expectations, thats what you sign up to achieve, so I'm no longer one of the 'he deserves' time folk. my only exception to this is when he's new to the club i.e. de boer, then common sense dictates that you need to give him half a season surely minimum but for the likes of Bilic, Wenger, Koeman, Howe….you've had your grace period long ago…if you don't cut the mustard, time to go.

But you'll be burning through managers and players all season. There's only so many suitable people available. Look at Swansea 8 managers in 5 years. They're burning through names, struggling each season. I thought they could be one of those dark horses at one time, with a great style of play etc... now they lurk from one season to another. We'd also start burning through players the same way. Believe it or not there aren't that many quality manager all clambering to manage West Ham and work with our owners

i agree with you on this point, so you make sense. theres still a limit to how long you hold on though…coz if he's going to tonk 4-0's every other week we're going down regardless of how long he has and so recalling pardew might be better lol.